Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson, (1572-1637). English dramatist and poet. As a youth he was apprenticed to a bricklayer but ran away to Flanders as a soldier. About 1595 he joined a London theatre company, first acting and then writing. In 1598 he killed an actor in a duel and narrowly escaped hanging. Every Man in His Humour (1598) was per-formed at the Globe with Shakespeare in the cast. Volpone (1606) and The Alchemist (1610) were also very successful. Jonson was popular at the court of James I, who engaged him to write masques, but was less favoured when Charles I became king in 1625. His later plays were unsuccessful. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
